A little company helps

Picture: Globe inside the glass-domed underground mall


Today we had another visit with Caleb. It started out the same as the last few--big, sad, teary eyes; not wanting to eat any of the snacks we brought, not wanting to play with the toys we brought. One of the workers noticed our plight and brought in an electronic toy that--thanks to the extra batteries that Kevin happened to have with him--does the ABC's (in Russian), says the name of the pictured animal or item in Russian, maybe even spells words (you guessed it, in Russian) and plays music. It was great (I need to get one for myself!) Though Caleb refused to touch it he wanted us to keep pushing the buttons, especially the one for cat. He seemed to really like the meowing sound.

We who have packed Christmas boxes for Samaritan's Purse might be interested to note that the box which contained Legos was wrapped in Christmas paper and had a Samaritan's Purse sticker on it!

Anyway the whole scene changed when his little buddy came in (the one that the French couple is adopting) He had a cookie that he was determined to give to Caleb. It was adorable to watch his tenacity--and Caleb's equal determination NOT to take it. Anyway the room got much happier and much louder with both of them together. I think much of the problem is that Caleb just misses being with his friends. It's quite hysterical to have one couple speaking French, another couple speaking English, one little guy chatting away in what I presume to be Russian and another just da-da-ing. While I was out of the room momentarily I guess Caleb tried to thump the other little boy over the head with the alphabet toy so Kevin had to impose boundaries with his arm to keep the peace. Kevin said Caleb did all he could to move his arm out of the way but Daddy remained steadfast. By the time I rejoined the party Kevin had his arm around Caleb and Caleb was happily plunking away on a musical keyboard da-da-ing at certain intervals and kept looking to Kevin for reinforcement. I thought that was great. And seeing Caleb's positive reaction to other children lets me know how lucky he will be to have Billy, Scheri, Teresa and James in his forever family. He is such a copy-cat and will learn so much just by watching them.

After our 2 hour visit, we asked our driver (via translator) to drop us off by the Maiden statue at Independence Square and there met up with Nancy and Juan Gonzalez. We had a great time with them--eating, sight-seeing (ie, walking and walking), souvenir-shopping, and eating again in a great underground mall that they'd discovered. (They apologized for not having internet capability but did let us know their SDA appointment is tomorrow afternoon.) And then home again, home again, jiggedy-jig.